


From Jim to Jack

by K_Hanna_Korossy



Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-31
Updated: 2016-01-31
Packaged: 2018-05-17 08:07:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,749
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5860873
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/K_Hanna_Korossy/pseuds/K_Hanna_Korossy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tag to "Homecoming." It takes Daniel a while to remember everything...everyone.</p>
            </blockquote>





	From Jim to Jack

First published in _Redemption 6_ (2005)

 

So, they were in trouble, fairly serious trouble, and it didn’t sound like it was the first time. Just what had he gotten himself into?

Daniel Jackson—or so they claimed he was called—slipped out into the hallway and shut Teal’c’s door gently behind him. The big guy was…meditating or something, although he’d called it Kel-whatever, perturbed that his lack of a…well, okay, Daniel didn’t quite get that part, but something Teal’c had lost recently was making the meditating harder. Arrom—Daniel—could relate to that. He’d pretty much lost it all, memory stripped completely away by some sort of higher being—he hadn’t really understood that bit, either—and that made _everything_ harder. He’d grasped at Jim’s offer to return with them because he thought he would find his place there, some sense of belonging. Instead, so far he’d just found a picture of a woman he’d loved but couldn’t remember, a lot of corridors and faces that were maybe vaguely familiar, and the realization that they were all in serious trouble from some pseudo-ancient Egyptian god who he’d supposedly fought and, presumably, lost against.

Terrific. Maybe he should have just stayed on the planet, where he knew his tent and the people, and his only choices were whether to go help with the hunting or stay behind to harvest.

But while he’d been welcome in Shamda’s tribe, Daniel hadn’t belonged, not like the faint but definite tugs he felt toward this place, these people. No, this was where his past, and thus his future, lay. To look for them anyplace else would have meant not finding his true self. And, for better or for worse, that was what he needed to find. Even if remaining Arrom might have been a lot simpler, and safer.

So, Daniel glanced up and down the corridor. Where did a person start looking for himself?

Teal’c’s room was just next door to his, so that hadn’t been hard to get to. And Daniel vaguely remembered the path they’d taken from the Chappa’ai—what was their name for the Great Circle? Some sort of gate. Well, whatever it was, they’d turned several corners and gone up in the elevator to reach the level Daniel’s room was on, and while he could probably retrace his steps if necessary, what good would that do? He already knew what the Chappa’ai was. It was time to find other answers.

He turned left.

Few doors were marked. Daniel peered at the signs on the ones that were—Utility Closet, Stairs—and looked in those that stood open. In one of them, several people in white coats were grouped around a piece of equipment that wasn’t even vaguely familiar to him. Should it have been, Daniel idly wondered, then dropped it as unimportant. Remembering the operating instructions of strange machinery was the least of his concerns now.

Another open door was a lab of a different sort, this one lined with several tanks of various vegetation. Only one person was present, a red-haired woman in another white coat who seemed to be taking the temperature inside one of the tanks. As Daniel paused at the door, she turned and caught sight of him, and broke into a friendly smile.

“Dr. Jackson! Welcome back.”

Huh. He wouldn’t have minded knowing who she was, but she didn’t stir even a hint of memory in him. Daniel lifted a hand in a hesitant half-wave. “Uh, hi.”

That seemed to be enough for her. Another beaming smile, and she turned back to her plants.

Well, that wasn’t so bad. Daniel stared at her a moment longer, until the ghost image of Sha’re jolted him with guilt. It wouldn’t be easy staying faithful to a memory that meant nothing to him, but then, what had been easy about this so far? Daniel sighed and kept walking.

The redhead seemed to be the only spot of color in a place that was all grays and drab greens. It would have depressed him if he hadn’t already been down. Had he really learned to live in this lack of color, of life? Even the air smelled stale, recirculated…and how he remembered how recirculated air smelled, Daniel didn’t know. It was like being buried.

More rooms, either labs or, in one case, a room that looked like his but undecorated and empty. A few people who looked glad to see him and called him by name even though he had no idea who they were. Finally, a bathroom Daniel retreated to to splash water on his face and stare blankly at the mirror. If Daniel Jackson was lost somewhere in that structure, in all those long gunmetal-gray hallways, he wasn’t easy to find.

Arrom—Daniel—took a deep breath and walked back out into the corridor.

Another turn and the elevator was in front of him, the end of that road. Up or down? Were his answers anyplace he could get to from there? Was he even allowed to _go_ in the elevator?

It pinged its arrival in the midst of his reverie, and Daniel unconsciously stepped back as the door slid open. And didn’t know if he felt relief or unease at the sight of Jim standing inside.

The older man’s eyebrows and the corners of his mouth turned up, surprised joy. There was a light in his eyes, too, one Daniel had noticed on the planet still, when they’d first met. And that had faded when Daniel hadn’t recognized him. Still, he hadn’t told Jim, but it was one of the reasons he’d agreed to return with them to this base. None of the tribe had lit up like that when they saw him. He meant something to these Earth people, and Daniel had to know what.

But that didn’t mean he wasn’t intimidated to be with those who knew him so much better than he knew himself, or who looked so glad to see him. Daniel found himself backing up another step.

“Daniel, wait up.” Jim put up a hand as he stepped out of the elevator. “You going someplace?”

It took Daniel a second to realize he meant with the elevator. “Would that be okay?” he asked cautiously.

A look almost like pain crossed Jim’s face, just for a moment, then the smile was back. “Sure. Anyplace you wanna go, just stay on the base for now, okay? Hammond wants you to stick close to home until your memory comes back.”

“Hammond. Right.” Daniel glanced past him, at the elevator that was still standing open, waiting. A scene flashed through his thoughts, some inchoate memory of running and shooting and ducking into the elevator, then disappeared just as quickly. It wasn’t the first glimpse of his past, but besides Sha’re, all the scenes had been violent, frightening. Did he even _want_ to find his answers?

“Hey.” Jim’s voice had softened, and drew Daniel’s gaze almost involuntarily. The light was gone from the brown eyes again, but there was sympathy in them, and concern. Not obvious, but somehow, some part of Daniel still remembered how to read this man, and could see it. “It’ll come back. Give it time.”

Daniel smiled wryly, not as steady as he’d have wished. “I think that’s what I’m afraid of,” he surprised himself by admitting.

He’d expected a grimace at that, but was surprised again when a ghost of a smile flickered across the colonel’s face. “Yeah. There’re a few memories of this place I wouldn’t mind losing, either. Still, you know, ‘home, sweet base’.”

“So they tell me,” Daniel muttered.

Jim looked at him for a moment, then nudged him with one shoulder. “Tell you what. Let me give you the nickel tour. Maybe it won’t seem so…”

“…sterile? unfriendly?”

“… _big_.” He was scowling, but Daniel knew it was all show. Knew way too much about the man, in fact. How could it be that a stranger was more familiar than himself?

And how could he explain that that made him uncomfortable, without hurting Jim’s feelings? “Uh, maybe some other time, okay? I’ve got—” Daniel made a vague motion back toward the direction of his room, painfully aware they both knew he didn’t have anywhere to be.

“Dime tour?”

“No, I really need to…” _Get out of here._

“Okay.” A second’s pause. “You’re sure?” The older man looked hopeful, but like he was trying to be casual about it. “I gave you the same tour when you first got here. It went _swell_.” A dramatic sweep of the arms. The man was like that, broad and unsubtle in his gestures, his humor, his expressions. Until you looked at his eyes.

Daniel didn’t. “Thanks, I think I, uh…anyplace?”

“What? Oh, well, if you see an airman guarding a door, you might wanna keep walking, but, yeah, just about anyplace.”

“That’s…that’s good to know.” It was a military instillation and he was allowed to go anywhere? Just what kind of civilian had he been? But somehow, he didn’t want to ask, not while Jim was looking at him so earnestly. Daniel just nodded, already turning away. “I’ll, uh…” He pointed down the hallway to show where he was going. “Thanks, Jim.” A parting wave.

“It’s Jack,” the correction followed him down the hall.

Jack, right. He’d have to remember that. Wasn’t like he had all that much else to remember, right?

Swallowing a sigh, Daniel Jackson hurried away from the elevator and the man who stood in front of it who was both so familiar and not, and went back the way he’d come.

 

It had been a long day.

Arrom— _Daniel_ , darn it—stepped into the commissary with a sigh of relief, glad there was at least one place he knew the way to. Maybe he should have taken up, uh, Jack’s offer for a tour; Daniel had nearly lost his room earlier in the day, then managed to make a few airmen very nervous when he stumbled into the armory. Not like he’d been looking for the place, of course, or even that he wasn’t allowed to be there, but still, no one seemed to know what to do with him. Daniel knew the feeling.

So this, this was a good step. He’d find something to appease his growling stomach, go back down to his room, and shut out the confusing world for a little while.

Now, if he only remembered what he liked to eat.

“Hey, Daniel!”

He’d come to cringe at those two words, but was smiling by the time he turned to face the speaker. It wasn’t their fault he didn’t know them from his brother—and, come to think of it, that brought up some all new questions. But for the moment, he concentrated on the man coming toward him. And the half-dozen people behind him, all looking various degrees of joyful at the sight of him. Wonderful. Daniel’s smile wavered and he pinned it into place again, hard.

“We heard you were back but we just couldn’t believe it. Must be one heckuva story!” The man was young, gawky, and in non-descript, non-ranked fatigues like himself. Another civilian—a scientist, maybe?

“So I’ve heard,” Daniel said with plastic pleasantry.

“That’s great—we’ve been really swamped with all the finds from Abydos. When you’ve got some time, I’d like to run some tablets by you.”

“There’s the urn, too,” someone else piped up from the group behind, and shifted closer to Daniel. “It’s sealed, but—”

He was interrupted by the first…archaeologist?, Daniel guessed, head swimming. “That can wait. Those tablets are a lot more—”

“Dr. Ross.” The new voice slid in smoothly, both cutting off the scientists’ chatter and sending Daniel’s incipient headache into retreat. “Dr. Jackson’s still recovering. Why don’t you give him a few days to get back on his feet.” The woman he knew only as Sam stepped up beside him, subtly placing herself between him and the pressing archaeologists.

Even if Daniel hadn’t known she was in the military, it would have been obvious from the easy authority she carried. The group of civilians responded immediately, backing off, shuffling away, a few casting disappointed looks at Daniel as they went. The feeling of letting people down was starting to become awfully familiar.

Sam turned to him. “They mean well,” she said apologetically, “they just don’t know all the details.”

“Gee, I wonder what that’s like,” Daniel said dryly, and made a face when he saw Sam’s reaction. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to…” He took a deep breath, waved a hand at the array of food. “Dinner?”

She smiled easily, forgave easily. He could see why she might have been his friend. “Sure.”

They each took a tray and started making their way down the line. The smells tantalized his memory without touching anything concrete, but some instinct led him anyway. He picked up a wrapped sandwich and an apple, then reached for a carton of cranberry juice.

Sam touched his hand, shaking her head as he looked up at her, and pointed at another carton. Orange juice. Apparently even his instincts had amnesia. Daniel trusted her, though, for reasons he himself could not have explained, and he took the orange juice. Chips followed, then an overflowing piece of some sort of berry pie. Sam had filled her tray, too, and they moved to an empty table Daniel was glad to see was fairly isolated in the corner of the room, far from the archaeologists.

She glanced at his meal as they sat, and he saw a quickly swallowed smile tweak her mouth. He looked down at his own tray, found nothing amusing in what it held, and looked up, eyebrows lifting. “What?”

Sam shook her head. “Nothing. It’s just—that’s what you’ve gotten for lunch ever since I’ve known you. Some part of you still remembers.”

“Great,” Daniel drawled. “Now if my stomach could just remind me why I was demoted or descended or whatever, I’ll be in good shape.”

She dimpled, undimmed by his sarcasm. “It’s a start.”

“Yeah, I guess.” He unwrapped his sandwich and took a careful bite. Better than…well, not remembered, but at least thought. “I’ve remembered a few other things, too, just bits and pieces that don’t make a lot of sense, but it seems like this _Oma_ didn’t wipe me totally clean.”

She’d also started in on her salad, but her gaze was distant, thoughtful. “From what I know about her, that would make sense. She always seemed to be on our side—taking your memory permanently doesn’t fit.”

Another spark of remembrance, almost more of a feeling, and Daniel gave her an amused look. “Does everything have to fit?”

Sam looked startled. “Well…yeah. If it doesn’t, that just means we don’t have all the pieces yet.”

“Ah.” He nodded, took another bite of his sandwich, then a sip of juice. Sam had been right—he did like this one. She, however, had chosen milk, along with a piece of cake. Daniel frowned, distracted. “Don’t you usually have something…blue?”

She stared at him, uncomprehending, then down at her tray, and he saw the light of realization. And something more, excitement. “Jell-O? You’re kidding—you remember that?”

Daniel shrugged, suddenly uncomfortable with the new hope he’d unwittingly kindled in her. He could read her face almost as well as he did Jim’s, and it felt just as awkward. “I don’t know, I just had this…picture.”

“Of my Jell-O.” Sam was shaking her head. “Boy, Janet was right when she said your memory might be unpredictable—I can’t believe you remember that.”

Definitely time for a change of subject, before she started expecting him to remember a lot more. “Janet—she’s your friend?”

“Mm-hm. Yours, too. She’s also a great doctor—she’s figured out some completely alien viruses and physiologies.”

That was reassuring. Daniel looked at her with a gimlet eye. “Have we gotten a lot of those, alien viruses?”

A faint blush colored Sam’s cheeks. “Just a few.”

“That’s…great.”

They both ate in awkward silence a long minute, until Sam perked up again. “So, I hear you’ve been exploring the base.”

Heard from whom, Daniel longed to ask, but the last thing he wanted was for them to think he was paranoid on top of everything else. The deck was stacked enough against him already. He took a breath. “Yeah, a little bit.”

“Have you been by your lab yet?”

Daniel shook his head. “I thought Jonas—” The one member of the team of whom he had no impressions, not even the unconscious memories he had of the others. A substitute for him, Daniel had finally figured out, and had been avoiding the guy ever since. One displacement was all he could handle at a time.

But that wasn’t the only reason he hadn’t been up to his lab yet.

Sam winced, shook her head.

“He—well, for now he is. But most of it’s still how you left it and now that you’re back…” She didn’t seem sure how to finish that, either. Sooner or later, they’d have to talk about Jonas…but not now. “So,” Sam brightly said after the pause. “Where have you been on the base?”

“Oh, checked out the labs, saw those robot things—”

“The MALPs, right,” she nodded.

“Yes, those. Uh, surprised the guards at the armory—just your basic tour,” Daniel said. “I thought maybe it would trigger some memories…”

There was that bright hope again. “Did it?”

“No.” And regretted his immediate reply at her look. “Well, some. Nothing that makes any sense yet.”

She reached out, putting a hand gently on his arm. It was the first invasion of his space he didn’t mind, Daniel realized, even as she said, “You’ve only been back a day. Things are starting to come back already—it’ll only be a matter of time.”

“Right,” he nodded, less sure inside. “That’s what Jim said, too.”

Her eyebrows shot up. “You mean ‘Jack’—Colonel O’Neill.”

“Right.” What was it with that name? “Jack, sure. Grey hair, jokes a lot.”

He got a small grin for that. “We gave him that grey hair, Daniel, and he jokes because this isn’t easy for him, either. The colonel…well, he changed after you…ascended. We never talked about it and at first I didn’t get it, but it hurt him, a lot. We all grieved for you, but you were—are—his best friend.”

That was, unfortunately, the same impression he’d gotten, but it just made things harder. Maybe it really would have been better for him not to have returned. They’d all dealt with his leaving, moved on with their lives, and here he was now, dragging them back to a past he didn’t even remember. Daniel put his sandwich down, suddenly not hungry.

That kind hand was back, lightly squeezing his forearm. “That doesn’t mean we’re not all really glad you’re back. I missed you, Daniel.”

He thought of the joy in J-Jack’s eyes, the satisfaction in Teal’c’s gaze, Sam’s concerned expression. Daniel believed her, he just wished he could say he felt the same. Instead he just swallowed, nodded. “Thanks, Sam.”

Small talk didn’t go very far when you couldn’t remember anything you could talk about. The rest of the meal passed mostly in stiff silence, then Daniel headed unerringly back to his room and went to bed.

You didn’t forget, or ache, in dreams.

 

He dreamed of Sha’re, and woke feeling emptier than when he’d had with no memory of all.

But for a few seconds, as Daniel stretched under the sheets, then opened his eyes to blink at the artifacts sitting on the nearby desk, it all seemed normal, expected, _known_. And then the amnesia fell back into place like Lethe’s curtain, cutting even those fragile threads of memory. Daniel sighed, rolling onto his back to gaze at the ceiling, and tried to think of a reason he should bother getting up.

Coffee.

With a weary grumble Daniel rolled off the bed, onto his feet. Some things even Oma couldn’t erase completely, like the bliss of that first cup of the morning, as the bitterness bit his tongue and the caffeine gave his brain a kick. So far it was one of the few things that had made returning to Earth truly worthwhile.

It was late enough that the morning crowd was mostly gone from the commissary, which was just fine with Daniel. The few who were still there thankfully contented themselves with smiles and nods of the head. Daniel collected a steaming mug, gulped down a Danish, and wandered out again in peace, intending to go back to his room and savor his coffee over another few pages of the archaeological journal he’d found in the desk.

But found himself pushing the elevator button for Level 18 instead, going up instead of down. To the archaeological research labs. His lab.

Leaving the elevator, Daniel’s feet knew which door it was, wanting to go there. Only his mind was getting in the way as he slowed, then finally stopped, nearly at the threshold.

What if Jonas was there? Would he feel like Daniel were kicking him out? What if he’d completely redone the lab, if there was nothing left to elicit a memory? What if…

…it brought everything back?

Daniel puffed out a breath, impatient with himself, and reached for the doorknob.

The light was on, the soft creak of a chair as he opened the door confirming that the lab was, indeed, occupied. But it wasn’t Jonas sitting at the desk.

Daniel frowned, unsettled yet again by an unexpected meet. “Jim?”

The older man hastily set something down on the desk he’d been fiddling with, something Daniel couldn’t make out but that wasn’t a file or a book. “Jack,” he said quickly.

“Noo, I’m pretty sure I’m Daniel.”

A sigh of exasperation and the chair creaked harder as the colonel pushed himself up from it. “ _You’re_ Daniel. _I’m_ Jack.”

“Oh. Right. Sorry.” Daniel didn’t have to try to look sheepish—he remembered coffee but couldn’t manage to hang on to his best friend’s name?

“I know, I look like a Jim,” Jack nodded, deadpan. “I get that a lot.”

“So…what are you doing here?”

Jack shoved his hands into his pockets, his shoulders hunching. “Just leaving, actually.” He stepped toward Daniel, and the door.

“Wait, you don’t have to go on my account,” Daniel said hurriedly. He hadn’t meant to interrupt anything, although from the little he knew about Jack, he couldn’t imagine what the colonel could want in an archaeologist’s office.

“S’okay,” Jack waved a hand. “I’m done.” He slid by Daniel without a glance and disappeared out the door.

Daniel stared after him with furrowed brow. “Well, that was…weird,” he murmured. The day before, Jack had looked crestfallen because Daniel didn’t want to take a tour with him, but now he couldn’t get away fast enough. Maybe he didn’t remember Ji-Jack as well as he’d thought.

He turned away from the door to look at the desk, then took a step closer to see what it was Jack had been holding. Daniel recognized the small vial as medication but not which one, even though his own name was on it. He peered down at the tiny instructions on the bottom: _Take 1 pill as needed for allergy symptoms._ Allergies, huh? Dr. Fraiser hadn’t mentioned that. Glancing around the office, Daniel hoped it wasn’t an allergy to dust.

That still didn’t answer why Jack had been there long enough to sit down, or what he’d been doing with the vial, or even why he’d been so quick to put it down at Daniel’s entrance. The vial wasn’t even new, so Jack couldn’t have just been delivering it from Dr. Fraiser. Just how many of his things had they saved, anyway?

From the look of the office, a lot. Daniel forgot about the vial, setting it absently down as he rounded the desk and walked over to the bookshelves in awestruck wonder. All those books—had he read them all? Daniel drew two fingers down one leathered spine, feeling the _rightness_ of the worn volume to his touch. Another sensory memory, maybe. The chunk of carved petrified wood next to the books also looked like it belonged there, and the crystal skull below it made his heartbeat jump for no reason Daniel knew. A folded, tanned hide. A shard of deep blue crystal. A wedding photo of a white-haired but radiant couple. They all fit in the room his mind couldn’t see but that was still there to touch, to smell, to feel around him. Because he fit in it, too.

“Dr. Jackson?” A knock simultaneously sounded against the half-open office door.

Daniel jerked around, startled at the interruption. “Yes?”

It was one of the archaeologists from the commissary the day before, looking a little more restrained now. “I’m sorry to bother you, but we could really use your help, if you’re up to it.”

It took a moment for his mind to jump tracks. “Uh, right, the tablets from, uh, Abydos?”

The man shrugged uncomfortably. “Well, yeah, there are those still, but we’ve got a lot of new material coming in from P6…uh, the planet you were just on, and, well, Mr. Quinn said to ask you if you could come take a look ‘cause he’s working on the main carvings but there’s still a lot of other stuff to go through.”

“Oh. Sure.” Well, why not? Perhaps it was time to see if there were any memories left at all in that emptied head of his. “I’ll be right there.”

The archaeologist’s face cleared in relief. “Great, that’s great. We’re just down the hall in the lab on the right.”

“Okay.” Daniel waited until the man disappeared, then glanced with longing back at the bookshelf. The books called to him, offering him a glimpse of his past along with those of the peoples it covered, but that would have to wait right now. He knew now at least what he’d come up there to learn, that there was something still left of his former life besides the few treasures Jack had put away for him.

And that vial that sat, alone, on his desk.

A minute later, Daniel walked out of the office, turning the light off and shutting the door after himself.

In the office behind him, the desktop was bare.

 

The headache was building in a spot just behind his forehead as if a space had been carved for it. Daniel sighed as he rubbed at his temple. Who knew, maybe there had been. If the reports and records he’d been reading those last few weeks were any indication, stranger things had happened to him the previous seven years.

The briefing earlier that day hadn’t helped. Didn’t anyone get that he had no idea what he’d been thinking when he—well, the ascended he—had sent them to Abydos, then told them to give the Eye of Ra to Anubis? How fair was it to blame him for actions he couldn’t even remember, let alone begin to explain? Not that there wasn’t, doubtless, a very good explanation. It was just trapped in his brain, along with his favorite flavor of ice cream—Teal’c’s recent test question—the name of his father-in-law, and who the heck Mary Steenburgen was, along with ten million other little details of his life. Not that some of them weren’t coming back, like growing splotches of color in the barren landscape of his past, but not enough and not fast enough. Like the part right before he’d gone to challenge Anubis to a one-on-one Daniel had clearly lost.

He sighed again and rubbed harder at his forehead.

It wasn’t as if everyone hadn’t been really patient with him. They hadn’t even expected him to show up at the briefing today, let alone explain himself. He’d sort of crashed that party, insistent they include him, so they had. But in the long run, they wanted answers, answers he didn’t have, answers he wanted more badly than any of them, and it was the one thing he didn’t have to give.

The headache was threatening to overflow, making his eyeballs ache, clenching his stomach. Daniel gave the photographs before him one last glance before giving up the work and stretching his arms over his head, feeling his shoulders and back pop, rolling his head on a rubbery neck. Anubis would just have to wait one more day, because Daniel wasn’t getting anything else done that evening.

He leaned back in his chair, taking off his glasses and knuckling his eyes now. Too bad Oma hadn’t fixed his astigmatism when she’d brought him back to Earth. Daniel took a deep breath and blinked a few times until his vision cleared to its usual sans-glasses blur.

His gaze fell on the four framed pictures that sat along the far edge of his desk. One of them, Sha’re’s, he’d brought up from his room when it became obvious he was spending more time in the office than in the sleeping quarters. The others had mysteriously appeared soon after, from Jack’s secret horde, Daniel guessed. One was of his parents, he knew that now, standing forever young behind their seven-year-old son at a dig in some country he still hadn’t recalled. The third was of the four of them, the SG-1 he’d known, at some sort of celebration. They were all in non-military clothes, relaxed, smiling. Well, three of them were smiling; Teal’c just looked a little less stern. And the fourth…the fourth was in a frame shaped like a hockey puck, which made him wonder if this had even been his picture. But it was just him and…Jack in that one. Civilian clothes again, and outdoors somewhere after a fishing trip, if the rod in Daniel’s hand and the string of fish Jack was holding was any sign. Daniel couldn’t even remember liking fishing. He was fairly certain he’d never gone as a child.

Daniel picked up that last picture and looked at it closer, the fuzzy lines sharpening. Jack was grinning ear to ear, while Daniel looked like he was simply tolerating the whole thing. That certainly made more sense. Except…there he was anyway, a fond hint of a smile hiding even under that long-suffering look. And Jack’s hand was curled around his shoulder with an ease that looked like he was comfortable in Daniel’s personal space. Daniel wasn’t pulling away, either. He didn’t need to have his memory back completely to recognize the clear body language of friendship.

He hadn’t seen too much of Jack since the first few days of his return. Well, there had been the briefing where, okay, the man had threatened him with bodily harm, but Daniel was pretty sure that was just his usual bluster. But the other times they’d met, either he’d been uncomfortable with the older man, or Jack seemed uncomfortable with him, and their exchanges were usually brief and awkward. If they really were friends, if they were even going to work together, it was time to change that. At the very least, it beat wearing his eyes out on the endless translating.

It was an easier decision than he’d thought. Daniel was soon locking up his office and heading down to Jack’s, a mission folder clutched in his hand as an icebreaker.

Jack’s office was empty.

Daniel stood in the doorway of the almost barren room, nonplussed. He’d seen the nameplate on the door earlier and had assumed the room was as cluttered as his was, but only a few reference books lined the shelf, and while the desk groaned under its load of paperwork, there was nothing personal, no mementos, no photographs. Was that really a reflection of Jack, or…

Following instincts he didn’t know he had, Daniel turned and headed back up, to the level where his and Teal’c’s quarters were.

The VIP quarters filled one hallway, most of the rooms empty. Teal’c’s was more-or-less permanently furnished, if you could call a lot of candles, plants, and a TV furnishings. Sam had a room two doors past it, although she seemed to stay at her home more than on the base. But that probably meant Jack had one someplace there, too, and in two weeks, Daniel had never seen him use it. Odd hours, or another person who preferred life off the base?

Daniel rapped on the first three doors, but they were all unlocked, empty, the rooms colorless. The fourth had a window, and as Daniel peered through it, déjà vu struck: Jack, his face swollen, his eyebrows prominent, almost Neanderthalian, sitting restrained inside. It was powerful enough an image to knock him back a step.

Daniel really wasn’t sure he wanted to know what was behind that memory.

The next door was Teal’c’s. Getting frustrated, Daniel backtracked to the first door on the opposite side of the hallway, nearest the elevator, and knocked again.

“Yeah,” came the call from within. Ah, nearest the elevator—of course. Always on duty.

Daniel opened the door and stepped inside.

The room was almost as undecorated as the empty ones, only a few traces of occupancy scattered throughout it: a shaving kit on the nightstand, a child’s drawing of some four-legged creature propped on top of the dresser…a hockey puck acting as a paperweight on a stack of paperwork on the desk. Daniel hid a smile and idly wondered if the picture was drawn by the same kid who’d drawn the ones in Sam’s room, although the age-level seemed different. But it was no wonder he hadn’t seen Jack using a room. This one looked barely lived in, a convenient place to stay sometimes. Probably that was all it had been for Daniel once, too, before he’d died—ascended—and lost any home he’d had outside the SGC.

Jack had been propped up on the bed, reading from a leather-bound book he quickly set aside when he saw Daniel. That fact alone struck Daniel, too: Jack had seemed more a TV-and-hockey-games kind of guy than a reader. Then again, Sam had already pointed out that colonels didn’t reach that rank without at least a master’s degree and considerable intelligence, and once Daniel had bothered to look, he’d seen the sharp mind working behind those deceptively casual eyes. Memory or no, he wouldn’t be fooled again.

“Daniel,” Jack sat up. “Forget which one’s your room?”

His mouth inched up into an unintended smile. “No, actually, I was looking for you.”

Jack lifted his hands, a silent _ta-da!_ gesture. “You found me.”

“Uh-huh.”

A long moment’s pause. Jack finally lifted his eyebrows. “So…what, tag, I’m it?”

Daniel shook his head and crossed his arms. “No, I just needed a break from the translation work and I thought maybe we could…talk.”

Jack looked as if Daniel had just suggested they streak through the SGC. “Talk,” he repeated uncertainly.

“Yes, talk. We haven’t had much of a chance to since…” He motioned loosely with his hand.

“You descended?” Jack suggested.

“Actually, I prefer to think of it as ‘returning’.”

Jack considered that a moment. “Okay.”

Another pause.

Jack shifted on the bed, face blandly polite. “So, any of that memory coming back?”

“Just bits and pieces,” Daniel jumped in gratefully. “A lot of it’s disjointed, doesn’t make sense out of context. Like…these humming bald people I keep thinking of.”

“Naked?” Jack inquired pleasantly.

“Oh, yeah.”

“Planet we were on. Lots of naked, humming bald people. Nice guys, as long as we left their plants alone.”

Daniel tried not to gape at him. “Well, that’s certainly…enlightening.”

“Glad to help.”

“You didn’t.”

They had a rhythm, he realized as the words seem to tumble out of his mouth on their own. A…banter. Daniel hadn’t found that with anyone else. In fact, this was the closest thing he’d had to a conversation since his return from higher planes or wherever. The fact that it sounded like a vaudeville act was a little scary, but still, it felt…good.

Nevertheless, the pauses in between weren’t comfortable. Had it always been like this, Daniel wondered momentarily, then decided no. You didn’t go on fishing trips with someone you couldn’t share silence with. This was just another side effect of his memory loss, like their earlier avoidance of each other. After all, how strange a feeling must it be for Jack that his best friend didn’t know him, couldn’t even keep his name straight?

“I gave your fish away,” Jack said suddenly.

Daniel blinked. “What?”

“Your fish. You had some in a tank at your place. I knew I’d just kill ’em, so I gave them to your neighbor.”

“But in the office—”

“Jonas’s. He wanted to get some.”

Why Jack hadn’t just given him Daniel’s didn’t come up, and Daniel didn’t ask. Maybe the fish were already gone by then. Or maybe… He tilted his head, studying the older man. “Tell me something about me—about the Daniel Jackson you knew.”

Jack didn’t even ask. “Uh, okay.” He blew out a breath. “You loved hockey.”

Daniel stared at him. “Really?”

Jack made an impatient gesture. “No, not really—Daniel, what’s this about? You know Fraser said to let things come back on their own.”

“You didn’t seem to agree with that today in the briefing.”

He found a finger leveled at him. “That was different. That’s what you know—we need that to fight Anubis. This is about who you are.”

“Yeah? And who is that, Jack? Is it the person I was a year ago I can’t even remember? Or is it the me now, doing my best in a place I barely know, with people who know me better than I know myself, hoping each night I’m gonna wake up with it all back and scared to death it’ll actually happen?”

They stared at each other for a long moment, Daniel’s defiance slowly changing into embarrassment, Jack impassive, for once. And then, slowly, softening, but not into pity. “Not Jim, huh?” he asked quietly.

Daniel frowned, briefly thrown. “I thought it’s—”

“It is. ’S just the first time you’ve called me that.”

“Oh,” he said intelligently.

Another pause, not so awkward this time, as Jack looked at him. Then the older man seemed to make up his mind about something. He leaned down, reaching under his bed and pulling out a low, wide cardboard box, open at the top. And filled with leather-bound volumes like the one he’d been reading when Daniel arrived. He gave the box a shove toward Daniel, nodding with his chin at it for good measure. “Something else I’ve been keeping for ya.”

He had some inkling of what they were, a shadow of remembrance, but Daniel crouched down next to the box anyway and carefully took out one of the topmost books. There was no title on the cover, but as he opened it, there was one printed neatly on the first page: _Ernest’s Planet_ , and, under it, “P3X-972 _.”_ It was in handwriting he’d learned to recognize from the last two weeks as his own.

Daniel released a long breath as he flipped through the book. It was full to the last page with his writing and notes, some of it difficult to read, as if his pen hadn’t been able to keep up with his thoughts. This was his work, his thoughts, his past.

And that was just one volume out of what he estimated to be at least several dozen.

“Seventy-one, including this one.” Jack reached forward to put the book he’d been reading into the box. “Beats me where you found the time to write it all, but that might explain why you’re the only guy on base who has a cot in his office.”

Daniel stared up at him, genuinely taken aback, which no returning memory or revelation thus far had managed to do to him. “Jack, I—what about Fraiser and letting it all come back on its own?”

Jack raised his palms in a show of innocence. “Hey, I didn’t tell you anything. Those are your own words right there.”

“Right.” He looked again at the books, his distilled life, and felt a lump in his throat. Did Jack have any idea what this meant to him? Not just the chance to regain what he’d lost, but to do it at his pace, through his own eyes? The fear of what he’d find had all but fled with that gift. Daniel glanced up at Jack, surprising a look of compassion on the man’s face.

Okay, yeah, maybe Jack did have some idea.

Daniel cleared his throat, rocked back on his heels. “There’s one thing I don’t understand…”

“Just one?”

“How does a by-the-book Air Force colonel and an unconventional civilian archaeologist get to be friends?”

Jack’s mouth twitched. “Maybe the colonel’s not so by-the-book and the archaeologist isn’t so unconventional?” he offered.

“I doubt it,” Daniel muttered.

Jack paused. “Hypothetically speaking, right?”

“Right.”

“Could be any colonel and any scientist?”

“Sure.”

“Not us.”

“’Course not.”

“Maybe they found some common ground, respected each other’s differences about the rest.”

Daniel looked at him thoughtfully.

Jack lifted a single eyebrow. “Or maybe they bonded over hockey and fishing.”

Daniel snorted, then started laughing. The look of mock hurt on Jack’s face didn’t help. “Nice try.”

“Thanks,” came the sour answer. “I don’t suppose you remember the time we went fishing up at my cabin and you caught that six-pounder?”

He looked at Jack uncertainly. “Really?”

Jack’s eyes danced and he nodded at the box in front of Daniel. “Figure it out.”

“Yeah,” Daniel nodded. “I will.”

Seventy-one books were fairly heavy to carry even the short distance to his room, but between the two of them, it was no weight at all.

 

He didn’t sleep that night. Between dipping into each one of those seventy-one journals and stopping to read four of them cover-to-cover, there wasn’t any time. You couldn’t just set aside and ignore a treasure like this one.

The words— _his_ words—started weaving together the scattered scenes of his returning memory, filling in holes. The bald people, whom Daniel had first feared he’d made sick with his cold, and the fight with Jack that ensued. The time Jack and most of the base had, indeed, basically changed into Neanderthals. The mission where Jack and Sam hadn’t come through the gate, leading to the discovery of a second gate in Antarctica and the two of them near death. The sobering story of Teal’c’s family, his son brainwashed, his wife dead. Being kidnapped by a water alien that just wanted to know the fate of its spouse. And Sha’re, from her enslavement by Amaunet, through the birth of her child, to her death and final message to him. Maybe some part of his mind was in collusion with Oma in keeping his memories from him—who would want to remember all that pain and loss?

And yet…Daniel did.

There was a lot of good in the past his journals painted, too, that eased the weight of newfound grief. A wife he’d loved and shared a wonderful year with. Discoveries and adventures beyond his wildest academic dreams. Friends and family for the first time since he was a child, people who didn’t give up on him even when it seemed he was dead, or missing, or just an utter jerk. After the forced trip through memory lane by the Gamekeeper, Sam had gone across the country with Daniel to visit his parents’ graves, listening patiently while he processed the nightmare. Teal’c seemed to take it personally every time Daniel got hurt, and waited on him solicitously until he was recovered, whether in body or spirit. And Jack…Jack was nearly on every page of those journals, more than anyone else. From finding Daniel an apartment and helping him move in after his return from Abydos, to throwing Sha’re a wake because he probably didn’t know how else to help, to getting Daniel through the awful hours of withdrawal from the sarcophagus when he’d been at his most unlovable. Jack was inseparably threaded through his life, and he was just one of Daniel’s extended family there. He could actually remember the concern of his friends, and his fears in turn for them, worth even dying for. What was that but love and family?

He did want this life, heartache and all. Maybe he hadn’t been certain at the time of his ascension, but Daniel had no doubts now. He wanted to be that person in the journals, enough to fight for it.

Daniel lay back on his bed and looked around the room with new eyes, starting to pin memories to the artifacts, the books and pictures around him. It wasn’t just a sterile room anymore, full of meaningless trappings of an abandoned past. This was his home, where he belonged. With those he belonged. It felt like being reborn…which wasn’t that far off the mark, actually.

Daniel Jackson was back, and he jolted off the bed onto his feet, ready to go share the news with his friends.

The room spun dizzily, and Daniel grabbed for the bedpost to steady himself. Ah, no sleep and no coffee—bad combination. Maybe he’d share the good news after a little nap. It wasn’t like he was going anywhere, after all, right?

Daniel lay back down on top of the covers, pulling one corner of it over himself, and turned off the light. He’d have to find another apartment, maybe in a better part of town than the last one was. Jack had said he still had some stuff in storage, too, so it wouldn’t be completely barren. Considering he’d arrived at the SGC with all his possessions in two suitcases, that wasn’t bad. The guys would probably help him move, especially if bribed with food. And then he’d have to work something out with Jonas concerning the office because there just wasn’t enough room for two, and Daniel had to really dig into the translation work soon, before Anubis regrouped and became a real threat. Did he have any money for pizza? He’d have to check with Hammond to see if he had back pay coming for a year of…

Daniel slept, and if he dreamed, he didn’t remember it.

 

The wake-up call came in a panicked request for help by the archaeological team, and before Daniel knew it, it was nighttime again, just after eleven by his watch. Telling his teammates his memories were flowing back in a slow but steady stream, much of his past already filled in, would just have to wait until the next day. Daniel tried to ignore the disappointment even as he stifled a yawn. A quick stop at the commissary for a sandwich or a bowl of soup and then he’d call it a night. Well, maybe after he’d read a little more.

The commissary was as brightly lit as ever, open round-the-clock for those returning from missions at all hours. Still, most of the base was on a diurnal schedule, and the tables were almost all empty except for a group of people at a far table—SG-6, it looked like. And Jack O’Neill sitting by the door, reading a magazine as he poked at a bowl of half-eaten oatmeal.

The sleepy grit in his Daniel’s eyes suddenly didn’t matter. Casting side-long glances at Jack, who continued to read, oblivious, Daniel hurried to claim a bowl of chicken soup and a package of crackers, then returned to the table by the door.

“Finally escaped from the tombs, I see,” Jack’s drawl from behind the magazine surprised him. The colonel still hadn’t looked up.

Daniel took that as an invitation to sit, and did so across the table from Jack. “Not for Ross’s lack of trying. I don’t know why they didn’t just consult Budge like I did.”

One eye peered over the pages between them. “Budge, he one of ours?”

“Actually, Wallis Budge died about seventy years ago, but his works are still considered—”            

“Ah.” Jack lost interest quickly, and delved back into his reading. Which was, Daniel saw, not a magazine at all but a comic book.

“Spiderman?” he asked dryly

“Nope,” Jack said around a mouthful of oatmeal. “Jack O’Neill. I thought we’d covered that already.”

Daniel shook his head as he tore open a package of crackers. And noticed another publication lay on the table by Jack’s elbow, mostly hidden behind the comic book. He arched higher to see the title: _Astronomy_. He huffed a silent laugh, unsurprised.

Another half minute, and Jack made a show of shutting and laying aside his comic. Daniel noticed it nicely hid _Astronomy_ completely. Jack took a spoonful of oatmeal and looked at it for a moment, then at Daniel. “So, the brain trust come up with anything?”

Daniel sighed, stabbing at a piece of chicken with his spoon. “The Lost City’s still pretty much lost, but we have a few ideas, places to start.”

“You’ll find it,” Jack said without a shred of doubt, and ate the bite of oatmeal.

Daniel’s spoon stopped halfway to his mouth. Just like that? “What happened to, ‘Everyone, turn away—I want no witnesses’?”

Jack made a face, set down the spoon. “Look, if it’s not there, it’s not there. That’s not your fault.” Funny how the exaggerated expressions toned down the more serious he got. “We’ll keep at it, give it some time—it’ll come back.”

Time was actually one thing they didn’t have. And maybe this was some kind of reverse psychology thing, relax and stop trying and it’ll come to you, but Daniel didn’t think so. Jack was letting him off the hook in case he couldn’t come up with an answer in time, putting what Daniel needed first.

As well as trying not to show how much Daniel’s remembering mattered to him, and Daniel didn’t think that was about Anubis, either.

Jack had been reading one of his journals the night before; that detail hadn’t escaped Daniel. In fact, it was the first volume he’d picked up when he’d started reading, about their visit to P3R-272, the Place of Our Legacy, and how Jack had received the knowledge of the Ancients, leading to their first real contact with Thor. Daniel had wondered then why Jack had chosen that particular mission to read about, but he didn’t get it until now. Daniel had refused to give up on Jack then, just as Jack was doing for him now, even in the midst of the mess Daniel had led them into. But that didn’t mean it didn’t hurt to see a friend like that. Loyalty had a price. _Friendship_ had a price.

But when it was a good friend, it was worth it.

Daniel swallowed the spoonful of soup, never tasting it, and casually asked, “If General Hammond approves, I was thinking of looking for an apartment later this week. I know I haven’t got much to put in it, but if you guys wanna help me move, I could pick up some pizza or something. And…” He glanced up at Jack. “There’ll be cake.”

It took a moment, then Jack frowned at his oatmeal.

Daniel leaned forward, talking quickly. “I can’t remember anything from when I was ascended, Jack, so I can’t tell you anything about Anubis yet, but the rest is coming back pretty fast. The journals helped a lot, but I think it was…” Well, it didn’t really matter what it was, did it? Jack should know him well enough to figure it out.

Jack was starting to grin, that same slow, spreading smile as when he’d first seen Daniel after thinking they’d left him for dead on Apophis’s ship. He shook his head, eyes shining as they met Daniel’s. “Cake, huh?” he said softly.

“Well…it’s a start,” Daniel shrugged, but he was grinning, too. Even when he hadn’t remembered, he’d missed that look.

“Yeah,” Jack agreed with quiet fervency, and cocked his head as if he were seeing Daniel in a new way. “It’s a start.”

Dr. Daniel Jackson of SG-1 smiled, and finished his soup.

The End


End file.
